Reading & Training

Helen and Mark are actors in a high school version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. On opening night at the theater there's a special guest in the audience, Sherlock Holmes, who witnesses a terrible murder on stage. What happens when Helen and Mark join Sherlock Holmes to solve a baffling case of murder in the exciting city of Chicago? Who will solve the case - the Chicago Police or Sherlock Holmes and his teenage friends? The READING & TRAINING series is composed of illustrated graded readers, aimed at teenagers and adults. The readers are graded into six levels - from elementary/pre-lower intermediate to post-intermediate - according to internationally recognised criteria for structural grading.

• introduction about the author and his/her times
• wide variety of interesting activities to promote understanding of the text, as well as all four language skills, lexis and sociocultural awareness and knowledge
• activities in the style of the Cambridge ESOL and Trinity exams
• informative and fascinating cross-curricular dossiers, which explore the historical and cultural background of the text
• a recording on CD of the text in British or American English, with extra listening activities
• extensive vocabulary footnotes, with phonetic transcription of more unusual words
• exit tests
• guided internet projects

An answer key and an additional exit test for each reader are available online as a PDF file at the Black Cat website. Further info on grading can be found in the 'The Black Cat Guide to Graded Readers.